Dr Tristan Rich of Lort Smith Animal Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, performed the incredible surgery to remove the tumour from Bubbles, with hopes of the fish being able to return home to his loving owner. But the surgery wasn’t an easy one with Dr Rich first having to figure out how to perform surgery on a fish out of water.
Dr Rich set up three buckets of water, two with varied doses of anaesthetic and another with clean water for the recovery unit. “Bubbles went for a swim in the bucket with knock-out anaesthetic and once he was asleep, we ran a tube from the maintenance bucket which was being oxygenated into Bubbles’ mouth so the water washed over his gills,” Dr Rich said in a post on Lort Smith’s Facebook. “We worked quickly to remove the tumour and sealed the wound with tissue glue,” he said.
Fortunately the surgery was a success and Bubbles went straight into recovery. “Once that had set, Bubbles was placed in the recovery unit and given oxygen. He was also given injections with long-acting pain relief and antibiotics,” Dr Rich said. “Soon afterwards he took a couple of breaths on his own and started swimming around.” Bubbles is a much-loved goldfish and a big part of his family. Goldfish can life up to 30 years so his owners hoped he still had many happy years ahead.
There's a video of Bubbles happily swimming around post-surgery here and a news video here.
3 comments:
$500 isn't that much given the enjoyment they get from the beastie. Though I'm not sure as a vet how you'd tell you didn't damage its memory or something.
Ratz, where did you get the $500 from? I went over to the actual article and the owners stated that they didn't want to reveal how much it cost.
Shak: From one of the linked videos, a vet (who didn't perform the surgery) guesstimated that's how much it would cost.
I presume the majority of this is research and vet time as you can anaesthetise and even kill a fish with as little as clove oil.
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